- Forum >
- Topic: Czech >
- "I should not have gone there…
"I should not have gone there."
Translation:Neměla jsem tam jezdit.
6 Comments
513
Since jezdit is for repeated actions, might this sentence be saying "I should not have made a habit of going there?"
The translation of "I should not have gone there" can use any of the four "jít/jet/chodit/jezdit". In case of "chodit/jezdit", it could refer to going there repeatedly, but not necessarily - here, in combination with "neměl(-a) jsem", it can even be a single occurrence - a quirk of the language, I'm afraid. "Chodit/jezdit" are more likely in this context than "jít/jet". But the sense is a bit more like "I should have never gone there" or "I shouldn't have gone there at all" - although again, not necessarily. Even if we add "včera" (yesterday) and we really mean just one action of going somewhere, we can still use all four verbs with "neměl(-a) jsem".
This weird behaviour is only true for the negative "neměl(-a) jsem". In the positive, e.g. "Měl jsem tam včera jít/jet" (I should've gone there yesterday), the normal rules apply and we cannot use "chodit/jezdit" unless we really mean going back and forth repeatedly.